What Are Custom Engagement Rings?
Don't you want your engagement ring to be as beautiful as possible and filled with as much personal sentiment as you can get?
Most people think that the terms “custom” and “bespoke” refers to items of fashion and jewelry that you can expect to pay an arm and a leg for, and that only once you've found a jeweler (or tailor) that can produce what you want.
And it's true that at the top of the fashion totem are pieces made completely from scratch, often by hand, with no equal or replication in the world, that are often very expensive and hard to come by.
In men’s fashion, one thinks of the bespoke garments produced by the famed tailors of Savile Row in London.
In women’s fashion the great haute-couture houses found in Paris and Milan often take the top cake.
There are no racks in these places.
But not everything they make is truly a one-of-a-kind piece of art.
While many of the best tailors and fashion houses make innumerable bespoke pieces that are works of art, they often make copies of existing patterns that are made-to-measure; tailored off of a pre-existing pattern to fit the individual who purchases them.
Moreover, while many haute-couture houses are quite expensive, most bespoke tailors are more affordable than many people guess.
In the fine jewelry industry, there are plenty of similarities.
You can buy something that has been pre-made, which is essentially the same as buying off the rack. In some cases minor alterations can be made, but no alterations that change the character of the piece.
You can also buy something that is made specifically for you, but based on a pre-existing design that has been tinkered with to suit your individual needs and desires. After that customization, the piece in question may be unique in the world, unlike any other.
Or you can have a piece of unique jewelry made absolutely from scratch: a truly bespoke item.
What is the difference between bespoke and custom-made jewelry?
It might be semantics to some, but in jewelry design, the technical difference between something that is custom versus something that is bespoke is that a custom item may be based upon a pre-existing design that has been tailored and detailed to fit individual needs and tastes; while "bespoke" means items not only made from scratch but designed from naught.
At the end of the day, they might both be equally unique in the world.
In the jewelry trade, these terms sometimes get thrown around interchangeably.
How much should custom jewelry cost?
Most mass-produced pieces (even designer jewelry) are relatively easy to produce at a low cost: this industry is a business after all, not a philosophical-artistic movement to enamor crysophilists and lapidarians, (not to mention other lovers of shiny things.)
With the help of computer programming and robotics, a thousand basic diamond engagement rings can be produced swiftly and cheaply and marketed at high prices to unsuspecting fiancees around the world.
A custom jewelry piece actually isn’t always much more expensive: in fact, in many places, you can get custom-designed jewelry for less than you would pay for an “off the shelf,” item.
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, it will be exactly what you want.
The expense to create a piece of custom jewelry generally breaks down to the following components:
1) Cost of materials such as precious metals and gemstones
2) Design and production management
3) Labor and craftsmanship applied
How these costs are determined varies from jeweler to jeweler, but surprisingly, are often less than you expect.
For example, at Michael Gabriels, you can have a high-quality custom engagement ring produced for less than two thousand dollars.
The production and design process for custom or bespoke jewelry starts with selecting stones and working with a jeweler to make a design, often including a computer-generated model.
Many jewelry designers will also produce a mockup, a plastic or wax model of what your custom piece will eventually look like.
Once you have approved every detail, the model of the custom piece goes to casting, where molten metal is put in a mold using the CAD model. Once cast, it goes to setting and polishing where the raw metal is invested with your chosen precious stones and polished to a gleaming finish.
The now-finished final product is boxed and ready to be picked up or shipped to your location.
How Long Does it Take to Make a Bespoke Piece of Jewelry?
How long it takes jewelry designers to create a bespoke piece of jewelry does vary. From start to finish, it may only take a matter of a few days to several weeks. It largely depends on the availability of materials and how intricate the ring's details are. A more intricately detailed ring made with rare stones will have a longer process of production.
Custom Jewelry At Michael Gabriels
Let us make the perfect piece of custom jewelry for you.
Michael Gabriels is a family-run small business, with three generations and more than 100 years of experience in bringing people’s dream jewelry to life.
We specialize in custom jewelry design and production using sustainable and ethical materials as much as possible. That's why we use, almost exclusively, lab-grown diamonds and recycled metals from small and local producers.
We look forward to extending our knowledge, experience and expertise to help you produce the custom-designed engagement ring or bespoke fine jewelry that suits your needs and desires.
If you’d like, please peruse our collection of customizable engagement rings and other fine jewelry, all of which we tailor to your specifications and then make to order.
For the more daring or inspired, please reach out to us with a design or idea you would like to bring to life and we will be happy to oblige. You can start with an inquiry where we ask a few basic questions to get started, or call or message us at your convenience.
If you are in the neighborhood, please feel stop by our jewelry store in Soho, New York City, for an initial consultation. You can just walk in, or in order to maximize our ability to work with you, call or message us to make an appointment.
Please reach out to us with any questions you may have, which we will be happy to answer.